


Still a child

by Vivian_Curtis



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Durincest, I'm really sorry, Incest, M/M, baby!Kili, innocent kisses, so much pain, teen!Fili
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-17 13:46:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2311763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vivian_Curtis/pseuds/Vivian_Curtis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"...it's really difficult to defend yourself from someone who you do not want to harm."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still a child

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AlyChan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlyChan/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Ancora un bambino](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2284494) by [Vivian_Curtis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vivian_Curtis/pseuds/Vivian_Curtis). 



> So I tried to translate my first fanfiction I've wrote for this fandom and published on this site. I'm really sorry if there're mistakes, English is not my first language and I swear I tried my best; please let me know if I made a total mess!

On top of the hill, where the dense vegetation of the forest ends abruptly so that only the grass falls slowly down the slope, down to the clearing, he feels the breath of the wind, rustling leaves and birdsong. Nothing more. Not the noise of the forge, nor the loud voices of the other dwarfs. 

Even the calls of Thorin or Dis can get there, but this is due mostly to the fact that neither his uncle nor his mother know that Fili has chosen this place for ... what? Certainly not to hide, since Fili is no longer a child - the first traces of a beard have made it clear for several months. Fili himself finds difficult to explain why sometimes he feels like staying on the single, with no one around to distract him from his thoughts, as if the young dwarf did find it hard to follow them without the aid of solitude. 

What then, think Fili, is it really a good thing to get lost behind such thoughts? Is it worth it, or, in so doing, he does not get more than increase his suffering? When he is at home or at the forge, his legs itch with the desire to run away, but, if left alone, he would soon go right back and let the presence of others submerge again what he feels inside. Fili is not a naive: he knows well that, even when he endeavors in the workplace and during the lessons taught him by Balin, even when he endeavors to follow this or that conversation with Thorin, his mother or anyone else, even then those thoughts are still there, strong enough to always be felt, maybe jumping out at the most unexpected moment, so that Fili finds himself staring into space, his brow furrowed. Usually these episodes provoke the laughter of the other dwarves - "Ah, here he goes, Fili is spacing out again!" - And, oddly enough, Fili is grateful of such reactions: better the laughs, the jokes, damn it's even better they think he's stupid ... rather than having to give explanations. 

Yeah, the others laugh. Usually. His mother, at most, gives him a slap behind the back of his head telling him to descend from the clouds, but she always smiles, so Fili doesn't worry. 

Thorin instead stares at him with a serious face; perhaps he did so long before noticing Fili's behaviour, the young dwarf would not be surprised at all if his uncle had noticed his change from the beginning. The first time, after being awakened suddenly from that sort of somnambulism in which his thoughts deplete him, Fili met his uncle's gaze, he had felt his blood run cold in his veins. 

"That's it. He knows. He understood everything." he had thought, as he was convinced that Thorin could read his mind: he had spent his entire childhood believing it and the frequency with which his uncle could actually guess his real state of mind meant that even now, at one step from being an adult, Fili did find it hard to attribute everything to coincidences, rather than to an actual talent of Thorin. Until then, moreover, it would have made no difference; now ... now Fili really had the slightest desire to discover he really was an open book for anyone to read, much less for his uncle and absolutely not when Fili's secret would have caused the ruin of the young dwarf and his family. 

The anxiety that Thorin's stare made Fili feel was almost equal to the pain caused by what the latter was desperately trying to hide. It was easy to imagine the profound terror that fell upon the young man on that evening, when he felt a hand laid on his shoulder and, turning, he saw Thorin scrutinizing him in that unrelenting and excruciating way. 

"Fili, you're growing up: soon you'll be an adult dwarf for all purposes." Said Thorin, "It is normal that you feel confused or you fritter away your thoughts. Do not mind what your friends or the dwarves at the forge say: they have experienced the same or they will soon do so, and when they laugh at you there's no malice."

Without another word, Thorin was gone leaving Fili in total disbelief. 

He was safe. Fili was safe! "Thorin didn't understand, he doesn't know anything!" repeated the young dwarf in his mind as he laughed and cried at the same time. The torment remained his! He would continue to bear his sorrow without anyone knowing anything, until the end! 

Ah, yes ... The end. That was damn sure. Fili had spent so many lonely hours wondering how it would be, what would happen exactly. He was even able to hurt himself to the point of imagining the exact moment the end would come. 

The reassuring scenario: he dies taking the secret with him, along with all those cursed thoughts that had marked his existence. On second thought, dwarves were long-lived creatures and the life of Fili could last many years: that simple awareness was enough to choke Fili up, always. A long life to feel your heart filled with needles every single day: great, really! 

So there was an even more reassuring scenario, and it was the best absolutely: Fili dies early, still young, overwhelmed by his feelings. End of story. Nobody would get hurt, apart from him, and agony would still be short. 

All the other scenarios were pure nightmares: they were so many, too many, often similar, but perhaps this was just Fili's opinion. What did it matter, after all? The pain was always the same. 

Nothing will ever change: that's what Fili thinks even now, lying on the grass at the foot of the last tree of the forest, the one that goes just beyond the border, toward the clearing. From that point Fili could enjoy a gourgeous panorama: it's a clear day in late summer, the wind is still mild and hot and the grass underneath it moves like waves, giving the impression of changing shade of green every time it drops below the breath of the wind or gets up. Everything is quiet and nice, but Fili is sitting with closed eyes and what he sees in his mind is very different from what is around him. 

He sees hair, black and glossy like the wings of ravens, eyes the same color of the skin of the chestnuts and a stare that's sweeter than honey. He sees the smile that makes him die and come back to live each day, he sees the lips of whom he'll never know the taste. 

A rustle attracts Fili's attention. Another rustle, then a third. Fili remains motionless, he doesn't even try to squint an eye, since he already knows who has followed him to the top of the hill: it is a habit now, a bit like being happy and feeling his heart clench in pain at the same time. 

Fili can feel the presence become closer and closer, and then he can hear the muffled sound of the grass under the weight of someone who has just kneeling beside her. Something touches his nose, his upper lip, it insists there where a mustache took to grow in a golden down long enough to be visible, but apparently not enough to protect the skin from tickling; despite this Fili resists strenuously, so that it's his torturer to miss first a laugh, muffled by a hand – Fili would bet. When the long blade of grass is stuck in one of his nostrils, Fili snaps and in an second his arms capture and push to the ground the other dwarf. 

Fili opens his eyes and laughs, but even now it is little Kili to laugh louder, with all his heart, as if he couldn't do it any other way, whichis probably true, Fili thinks. 

The beginning of Fili's adolescence seems to have marked more deeply the age difference between the teen dwarf and his brother, and their bodies have never been so different. The elder is growing up, his voice is different, the beard took to sprout enough in advance to attract uncle Thorin's pride, while Fili's body seems to have decided that it is finally time to take a different form and let show the first hint of muscles. 

Kili is a child. Maybe Fili is still suspended in an intermediate stage and it'll be needed more time before he reaches his adult appearance, but Kili couldn't be more far from being in an in-between phase: he's a child, period. He still has fat where only children have it and smooth cheeks that redden in that adorable way just during childhood, not after. Kili has yet the same impetuous gestures of a happy puppy, there's no filter between his way of being and the world; he eats sweets and, even worse, he secretely steals them from their mother, he brings frogs in the house, he he grazes himself and, even though he tries hard not to cry, the fact remains: he definitely must be a brat to stll be able to stumble and fall forward like a sack full of potatoes. 

Fili doesn't accept any reply in this regard. 

Kili is still a child. 

"Kili ..." the blond murmurs while the other continues to laugh in his arms, without even trying to break free. "My Kili ..." 

His brother, his own blood, and not being able to forget for a single moment is what keeps Fili from going forward, at least out loud. But in his head, oh, in his head he recites all the epithets that he had found for Kili from the day in which Thorin has put the baby in his arms, a cute little thing all pink and wrinkled that would never cried when holded by his big brother. 

"My Kili, my love, my only light, my joy and ruin, my destiny ..." Fili repeats by heart: not even the prayers to Mahal are printed in his memory so deeply, nor the young man could say them with equal conviction "Death of mine... "

Kili's laughter fades and ends. Now the child is staring at his brother with his eyes full of curiosity and confidence and Fili can't stand it: he knows that Kili loves him, almost worships him and this is all an excuse to follow him everywhere; it doesn't matter that Thorin, Balin and several other dwarves keep telling him it's normal for younger siblings to look at elder brothers as their main, if not their only point of reference, at least until after their adolescence: it doesn't matter at all since normality isn't of any help, actually it's something unknown to Fili. 

Even becoming a teenager lost behind his thoughts, quiet and in search of solitude, should be something perfectly "normal", but it is not so. Perhaps it would be if there weren't a nameless guilt to hide; unfortunately there's nothing normal even in the attachment between siblings, when it comes to Fili and Kili. 

Kili is pure, how can it be otherwise? He'll remain innocent and clean as the snow until the day of his death, and not for the first time Fili suspects that he has to bear on his own shoulders all the faults, the mistakes and the misfortune of both of them, leaving for his little brother alone all the nice and desirable things for a happy life. 

It's Fili's task to protect Kili: he's the older one, he's the culprit. He'll continue his task, no matter what, even if this will mean being unfair with the love of his poor life, because that's a forbidden love, a love that's not destined to flourish. Fili must be severe and unfair at times, just like now, when he pushes his brother away, making him tumble in the grass a few feet away. 

Kili, little, unwitting Kili, laughs. He doesn't understand, he believes it's a game, so he throws himself into the elder's lap, his arms tight around Fili's neck. 

"Fili!" 

The blond pushes him off again, this time grabbing the child by his sides to sit him down on the grass; the gesture is abrupt and this time Kili can't misunderstand. 

"Fili ...?" 

"You make too much noise when you move, I heard you when you were a hundred feet from me." Fili exaggerates "At this rate, it'll take ages before you can come hunting with me and Uncle Thorin." 

The reprimand doesn't seem to have hit Kili as Fili hoped: the child stare at him with a seriuos expression, yet his eyes doesn't show resentment, but concern. 

"Are you angry with me, Fili?" 

The blond sighs: one day he'll have to learn to resist, to be even cruel if necessary. And it will be necessary, soon. Fili thinks it's really difficult to defend yourself from someone who you do not want to harm. 

"No, little brother." 

"But you're sad." 

“I'm desperate.” Fili thinks. “I'm as desperate as someone who, watching their baby brother, can see the teenager and the adult that he'll become, and that makes them want their sibling even more. I am as lost as the monster who wants to defile his own blood and doesn't care how much his brother is young.”

"Yes, I'm sad, Kili. Now leave me alone."

The other approaches him back crawling on all fours. "Aren't you at least a little happy when you're with me?" 

No way, Kili can always make him smile with his tenderness. "Of course you make me happy." Fili says and, raising a hand to show thumb and index finger so close that they almost touch, he continues: "But only so m..." 

The last word is stopped by Kili's mouth and dies wedged between the lips of the two brothers. It is the lightest touch, a gentle pressure, a innocent caress rather than a real kiss, identical to the other many kisses Kili has given him in the past years and as fleeting as them: there's just enough time for Fili to realize what's happening and Kili has already breaked away from the blond's mouth to smile, cheerful the sun.  
   
"There, I knew it! See? You're no longer sad!" Kili exclaims, amused by the elder's astonished expression. 

The child yelps, almost squeaks surprised like a little animal ended up in the trap when Fili grabs him by the arms and shooks him vigorously. 

"Kili! What have you done?” Fili roars, not realizing how his sudden anger makes him look like Thorin; he's aware of the confusion and the fear painted on Kili's face, so he gives up again, horrified by himself: the grip on his brother's arms slacken and, trying to control his tone, the blond whispers: "You must not do that anymore, you got it? "

"But ... but ..." Kili stammers "You've always liked my kisses. I thought they made you happy. "

"And so there, Kili! But we can no longer kiss, it's not proper: you're no longer a child, you're growing up... "

"That's not true, I am still a baby! It's you who's growing up, not me!" Kili cries, with big tears in his eyes, ready to fall, and that Mahal may save him, but Fili can't help gaping at his little brother, letting Kili's words tear him in pieces. "I want to be like you, Fili. I want to grow up like you, with you, not to be left behind. You can do a lot of things already and soon you'll do even more other thing, you'll always do anything better than me, even when I'll be an adult allowed to do them too. How will you be proud of me, then? How will I make you happy? I don't even know if I'll be able to! So ... so why can't I kiss you as long as I'm still a child? "

At this point Kili's crying, his sobs make him tremble, they spill from the little dwarf's lips together with the words so that some of them are unintelligible. 

Fili has no choice or maybe it's just that in front of Kili's pain he always knows what to do, that's to say holding him, reassuring him, giving him back his joy at any cost.

"Hush, hush..." the blond murmurs, letting his brother sob against his chest and holding him tenderly "You're right, soul of mine, you're right. But you know what? You definitely make me happy and proud, because you're the best brother ever."

Kili sniffles, his breathing is labored but changes pace already, as if the child's trying to calm down before speaking. "Do you swear it?" 

"Yes, I do: I have nothing to desire, Kili, if you are at my side." 

"Always!" the other ensures without the slightest hesitation "I'll stand by you every day of my life!" 

Fili closes his eyes: he seems to have just been put in front of his own fate and that this is not the first, nor the last time. Maybe that means that he'll never be able to get over it; maybe, on the contrary, he did it already and now he just have to learn to live with his burden. 

"Fili, what do you think when you are here all by yourself?" Kili asks after a few moments. 

"Nothing special. It's something that happens to you, when you become an adult." Fili lies. 

The child seems to ponder about it, then says: "I thought that growing up was fun, but I don't know if I still want to be an adult, if it makes you so sad. Uncle Thorin is always sad and so you are now: I do not like it at all."

Fili smiles to himself bitterly. "You'll see, it won't happen to you, Kili. You'll be the happiest dwarf of all Erebor, I'm sure! "

"I'm already happy..." the child whispers, clinging even more to his brother's chest. 

Fili almost retorts, but thinks better of it: in all honesty, he doesn't think of anything to say. Better to forget it. Kili's childhood is almost at its end and Fili has no idea what will happen when his baby brother will actually grow up: maybe it will be easy, then, to break away from him, take a different path from Kili's in order to not having to live in constant temptation. Maybe Kili'll understand, he'll be reasonable. Maybe it will be Kili himself to grow apart from his brother... He' ll fall in love, he'll have a family, a lot of children and then grandchildren to love and spoil. Yes, Fili thinks, surely his brother has a full and happy life before him. 

Fili ooks down to observe Kili: the child has stopped crying, he's quiet, and yet he show no sign of leaving the embrace. The elder strokes his dark hair, brushing a strand that had fallen on the child's face, and reflects. 

All the village compare Fili - the heir, the future King of Erebor with golden hair – to the sun and little Kili to the moon. Nobody, except Fili, can understand how that's untrue, because, since the world was created, there has never been a night so vibrant and chaotic as his beloved brother, nor a day with so little light like Fili feels inside himself.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, guys! Please leave a comment, even for criticize my fic: I don't mind constructive - and let me repeat it: constructive - criticism. Comments and kudos make me feel motivated, so if you want some other fic, maybe smut...  
> Ok, that's all for now! See you!


End file.
